IPA phoneme \w\
In English, both in Received Pronunciation and in General American, the IPA phonetic symbol /w/ corresponds to the semivowel sound in words like "world", "week" and "water". See also IPA phonetic symbol [w]. Common words Some common words which practice the pronunciation of /w/ include the following "w" * Initial "w". Remember that for simplicity /ɒ/ means /ɒ/ , /ɑː/ :"wa" or "wha" ::/weɪ/: wait, wake, waste, way, wave ::/wɔː/: walk, wall, Walter, war, warm, warn ::/wɒ/: wander, wasp, watch ::/wɔː/, /wɒ/ : water ::/wɒ/, /wɔː/ : want, wash, Washington ::/wɒ/, /wʌ/ : was :other: we, wear, week, well, wife, will, win, wish, with, woman, wonder, word, work, world, worry, would * "w" at the beginning of a syllable: always, anyway, award, aware, away, Delaware, forward, framework, Hawaii /həˈwaɪiː, həˈwɑːiː/, network, otherwise, reward, software, Taiwan * "w" in the middle of a syllable: between, Dwight, Gwendolyn, Swede, Sweden, sweet, swim, swing, Swiss, Switzerland, switch, tweet, twice, Twitter "wh" See also Wikipedia Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩. Currently in most accents "wh" is pronounced /w/. However in some accents this digraph is pronounced /hw/. In some of those accents "wh" is a single sound, transcribed as ʍ. * Initial "wh". Remember that for simplicity /ɒ/ means /ɒ/ , /ɑː/ :"wha" ::/weɪ/: whale ::/wɒ/, /wʌ/ : what ::/wɒ/, /wʌ/, /wə/ : whatever :other: wheel, when, where, whether, which, while, whisper, white, why * "wh" at the beginning of a syllable: anywhere, everywhere, meanwhile "u" :"gu" as /gw/: distinguish, guacamole, Guam, Guatemala, iguana, language, linguistics, Managua, Nicaragua, Paraguay, penguin, Uruguay :"q" as /kw/: consequence, equipment, quality, quarter, question, quick, quite, request, require :"su" as /sw/: persuade, suite :"hu" as /w/: chihuahua /tʃɪˈwɑːwə , tʃɪˈwɑːwɑː / :"ju" as /w/: marijuana /ˌmærəˈwɑːnə/, San Juan /ˌsæn ˈwɑːn/ :other: Buenos Aires, Ecuador, Kuala Lumpur /ˈkwɑːlə lʊmˈpʊər/, Puerto Rico, Venezuela Other *Ouagadougou /ˌwɑːgəˈduːguː/ *ouija /ˈwiːdʒə/ *quinoa /ˈkiːnwɑː/ /w/ not written *one, once *choir /ˈkwaɪər/ Homophones *one, won; sweet, suite; wait, weight; waste, waist; ware, wear, where; way, weigh; which, witch; why, Y; wood, would; No /w/ Many words that have "w" in their spelling don't have /w/ in their pronunciation. This in some cases means there are subtle differences in syllabification. For example "power" is /ˈpaʊ.ər/ and not |There is a difference in syllabification}}. Note, however, that the realization of some of these vowels may contain a w sound, as in power pronounced ˈpawɚ.Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary, power See IPA phonetic symbol [w]. The pronunciation shown by Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary is shown in square brackets. *power: /ˈpaʊər/ ˈˈpawɚ *rowing: /ˈrəʊɪŋ/ ˈrowɪŋ *sewage: /ˈsuːɪdʒ/ ˈsuːwɪʤ. In this case there is not a /w/ phoneme; however the /uː/ is pronounced as uw by most people. Oddity: Rwanda /ruːˈɑːndə, ruːˈændə/ Anticipated pronunciation difficulties depending on L1 Spanish In Spanish there is no contrast between /w/ and /gw/ (to be fair in English there is very little). Therefore some Spanish speakers will insert a /g/ sound before /w/: "water" pronounced as |Correct pronunciation is /ˈwɔːtər/}}. Others will drop the /g/ in words like "language": instead of Dropping the in this case can be regarded as a variant pronunciation rather than a pronunciation error. References See also *Decoding the letter W External links *British Library: Learning - Sounds Familiar? Consonant /w/ w